Water cooler talk and shrinking cities (03-15-2024--Hour3)

[00:00:00] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every

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[00:00:23] every episode for free, write your smartphone or tablet, and again thank you so much for

[00:00:27] your support. There's a fellow by the name of Jed, not the guy who found the oil, but

[00:00:34] Kolko is his last name, K-O-L-K-O. Actually I don't know, maybe he did discover some oil

[00:00:39] on it, but I don't think so. He is the former undersecretary for economic affairs at the Commerce

[00:00:45] Department and before that he was a chief economist with indeed.com as well as Trulia, which

[00:00:55] is the, I think that's a sweetener, right? Is it the green packets? I forget. Anyway,

[00:01:03] the nation's most urban counties lost population last year. Most urban counties, the most

[00:01:14] urban counties lost population last year and that was the fourth straight year that they

[00:01:20] have lost population. Who's growing? Good question, glad you asked.

[00:01:26] Lower density suburbs. They grew at their fastest pace since the foreclosure crisis according

[00:01:33] to the latest Census Bureau population estimates. The three largest metro areas, New York, Los

[00:01:40] Angeles, and Chicago all lost population in 2023. The fastest growing metropolitan areas

[00:01:49] last year were all smaller metros in the South. In your face. These losses were milder

[00:02:01] in 2023 than in 2022 and 2021 because of the pandemic. Okay, so the pandemic really

[00:02:09] hurt urban counties, really hurt them. Out migration from the urban counties was really

[00:02:16] really high 2020, 2021. It has tapered off a little bit but it is still, they are still

[00:02:23] losing population. These lower density, oh hang on a second, let me back up, I skipped

[00:02:32] something here. Oh, after those large pandemic losses, he says it is surprising that urban

[00:02:38] counties continue to lose population because at some point, right? It's like, wait, when

[00:02:44] is the loss? The losses should stop at some point. If it was pandemic related, right?

[00:02:50] Shouldn't it eventually stop and it has slowed and maybe next year it does stop. Maybe

[00:02:55] it reverses course or something or, you know, I don't know, maybe some Republicans take

[00:02:59] over these counties. Right? That's just, yeah, I'm just getting that one happened.

[00:03:07] The losses were milder last year. The lower density suburban counties tend to be more affordable

[00:03:13] also than urban counties and the higher density suburbs. So you got four different groups.

[00:03:19] You got actually more than that. You got urban counties and then you got large metros

[00:03:24] with higher density suburbs, okay? Then you have the large metros that have the lower

[00:03:31] density suburbs on the outskirts, right? Which makes sense like you got your urban core

[00:03:36] so like Charlotte, then you got your, you go outside of that. You got higher density suburbs

[00:03:43] and then outside of that, you've got sort of bedroom communities to the metro area, right?

[00:03:49] Lower density people are more spread out. So that's in the large metro areas. Then you

[00:03:55] have mid-sized metros and small metros and then non-metros, non-metropolitan areas, right?

[00:04:02] The only category that lost population was the large metro urban counties.

[00:04:11] Every one of those other groups I just went through, they all gained. Now the higher density

[00:04:16] suburbs in the bigger cities, they did not gain as much but they still gained.

[00:04:23] They still gained population. Working from home some days a week makes longer commutes

[00:04:29] more manageable because they are less frequent, right? Obviously. If my wife and I had this conversation

[00:04:37] when we were looking to buy our house a couple of years ago, I used to live off of Eastway Drive,

[00:04:44] East Charlotte, my first house. The neighborhood was kind of on the border there. It was kind

[00:04:53] of sketchy sometimes but very cheap house and it took us like 10 minutes to get to work. It was fantastic,

[00:05:00] right? I mean the houses now. The house I had, I bought for like 80 something, 80 thousand dollars,

[00:05:07] I want to say, 78 thousand dollars and I think the last time I saw it for sale, it was approaching

[00:05:14] 400 thousand and it's a two-bedroom one bath. So just because of the location, which actually,

[00:05:21] you know what, that might be a good rule of thumb for real estate. Location, like focused on the location.

[00:05:27] Yeah. Dang it. I have all these good secrets. I'm just giving them away. The water cooler,

[00:05:34] the fish and hole, now real estate. Man.

[00:05:42] Kirk says Pete, you also don't talk about the best DMV office to renew your license. That's

[00:05:48] true to Kirk. Okay, but luckily I didn't do that. Well, I did kind of the other day actually.

[00:06:01] Hang it.

[00:06:05] Tock in the long, so taking the longer view, he says population growth in urban counties was slowing

[00:06:10] even before the pandemic. Okay, so growth was slowing down before the pandemic hit. But here's

[00:06:15] the thing is more people than when the pandemic hit, you had more people work from home. Now they

[00:06:18] don't want to go back to work and they were like, I want more space as well because you're cooped

[00:06:23] up in a tiny little studio apartment with your spouse and you picked up a couple extra dogs

[00:06:31] and all this other stuff during the pandemic. Now you need some more room and maybe I have a

[00:06:35] couple kids that need some more room. So we can move farther away from our work because I can

[00:06:41] commute in only two days, three days a week. And so it's not so bad. The trade off is not so

[00:06:47] bad because I can work from home a couple days a week and it's not a big enough sacrifice of my

[00:06:53] time because that's what it is. It's not like I like to drive. I don't mind driving. I like it.

[00:06:59] But here's the thing. I don't like trading my life because that's what you're doing when

[00:07:06] you're in the car on a commute, you're trading a chunk of your life for no pay. Right? Because

[00:07:12] your employer is not paying you to commute into the job, right? That's your choice on where to live.

[00:07:18] So they're not going to pay you for that but that's part of your calculation when you're

[00:07:21] figuring out like what do I need to make at this job in order to make it worth my while to take

[00:07:27] the job, right? So the farther away you are, the more time you spend in your car that is a greater

[00:07:32] chunk of your life that you are spending in traffic. Population change has three components by

[00:07:40] the way, domestic migration, international migration and natural increase. So more births than deaths

[00:07:50] which by the way in the non-metral areas and the rural areas, small metros,

[00:07:56] you got more deaths than births. So that's their problem, right? That's the challenge occurring in the

[00:08:04] smaller places and the more rural places as you've got deaths because you have older populations

[00:08:10] and their youngins are moving away. They go to college, they go get jobs for opportunity in the big

[00:08:15] cities and stuff they leave. And if they may come back but when they come back, they're not having

[00:08:20] more kids, right? So you have more deaths than births and that's the pressure being put on those

[00:08:27] populations but the large urban counties, the domestic migration. That is people moving inside

[00:08:36] America, inside the state, whatever, that is a loss in the urban counties, that is a loss.

[00:08:44] They have more births than deaths, that is true. But international migration is the only thing

[00:08:53] keeping them close at this point. Urban populations are still shrinking despite the rising

[00:09:01] immigration numbers. Domestic out migration accelerated through the 2010s,

[00:09:08] it's spiked during the pandemic and it continues to more than offset the urban population

[00:09:12] boost from immigration. So the people who are leaving the cities and moving to some rural areas

[00:09:18] inside America or inside the state that migration, that is so great that even with the huge numbers

[00:09:26] of immigration, it's still not enough to be offset. That's a problem. Urban Exodus, this is from

[00:09:35] Mark who says, Pete, it's probably not a major factor but more and more articles have been

[00:09:42] appearing that argue the worst place to be if and when the stuff hits the fan is a densely

[00:09:48] populated urban area. Just look at the recent response to the trucker that said he wouldn't haul

[00:09:54] into Manhattan. That's true. That is true. As was outlined in the book one second after by Dr. Bill

[00:10:02] Forreston, post EMP and takes place in Black Mountain right outside of Asheville and they talk

[00:10:11] of he talks in the book about the devastation that Charlotte went through and all of the urban

[00:10:18] the dense urban areas suffer because you turn people's lights off for a couple of days

[00:10:25] They go a little crazy. So what else from this report, from the census data?

[00:10:34] Growth has shifted towards the south while the sunbelt has grown faster than the northeast and

[00:10:40] Midwest for decades. Sunbelt growth has become more concentrated in the south in recent years.

[00:10:47] In 2023, all 10 of the fastest growing metros were in the south and all were midsize or small

[00:10:55] metros with none with more than a million people. So they're all under a million people.

[00:11:02] What are the fastest growing metros? Glad you asked. And that just means the greatest population

[00:11:09] change in 2023. The fastest growing number one, the villages, Florida.

[00:11:19] Number two, well that's Wildwood they call it Wildwood the villages. Number two,

[00:11:24] Lakeland, Winter Haven, Florida. Number two, number three,

[00:11:31] Mertile Beach,

[00:11:32] Sash,

[00:11:33] Sash, Conway, Sash, North Mertile Beach. South Carolina. That's number three, that whole area.

[00:11:40] Which I saw somebody refer to and somebody got some video of some people stealing a bunch of

[00:11:45] crocs out of a crocs store which what a crock but really my first question was why

[00:11:52] Crocs? Did people still wear those things? I thought that fed terrible as it was. I thought

[00:11:59] that thing died a quick death but apparently I was mistaken. Do you have crocs, John? I wear

[00:12:05] crocs. You wear crocs. I did size 13 very comfortable. Is that a humble brag? No, just

[00:12:12] shoes are hard to find sometimes. For size 13s? They can't be. You know where you go.

[00:12:17] Are you doing like the letters too? Do you have any of the letter thing going on? No,

[00:12:21] I'm not into that. I've seen that. It seems more like a lady type thing. Yeah, like oh,

[00:12:26] they're wide. These are narrow. Yeah, but I have been told I have narrow feet.

[00:12:32] These are by a guy at a shoe store who was like taking my measurement on the foot and I'm like

[00:12:37] 11 1 1 1 2 and a half 12 depending it's like because like sneakers you got to go

[00:12:41] what is a little bit bigger? Like half a size bigger? Yeah. Because your feet swell or something

[00:12:46] smell? The swell. They do both. Oh yeah. Oh, do you remember? I just thought of this. No,

[00:12:52] probably because of the swelling. Do you remember they used to have the pumps? Yeah,

[00:12:56] remember those? The tongue of the sneakers? Yeah, yeah. It would have like a little ball on

[00:12:59] and you would pump it up and it would like cause ankle injuries because your foot would become

[00:13:03] basically immobilized. So yeah, lace them up so tight that there's no give. So as soon as you

[00:13:09] like step a little awkward, oh, there you go. Broken ankle. That's why I like crocs. There's

[00:13:15] lots of give. Lots of room in there. Yeah. Are they still plastic? There's kind of a rubbery

[00:13:21] plastic feel too. Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. So the somebody a bunch of these there was

[00:13:27] like three women and they were like just going and just like filling up these huge shopping bags

[00:13:31] of crocs just taking them off the shelves and and and just walking out of the store. They weren't

[00:13:34] even wearing masks so like they weren't even COVID safe but I know that was like the shocker. But

[00:13:41] somebody they they posted and are like this is in myrtle beach Florida.

[00:13:45] And they got dragged for that. Next up though, number four, O'Cala, Florida followed by

[00:13:54] Port St. Port St. Lucie, Florida followed by Heinzville, Georgia, Midland, Texas, Spartanburg, South

[00:14:02] Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina and then definitely fair, hopefully metro area,

[00:14:08] Alabama, stand. So there you go. So myrtle beach at number three and Spartanburg at number

[00:14:17] eight Wilmington at number nine. Number nine. Number nine. All right. Do the current world

[00:14:24] events have you wondering whether we are teetering on the edge of catastrophe? Are you concerned it's

[00:14:29] going to reach our shores? Okay. So what are you doing about your concerns? Let me help. Carolina

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[00:15:03] all ways at Carolina readiness dot com veteran owned Carolina readiness supply. Will you be ready when

[00:15:09] the lights go out? U.S. Congressman Greg Murphy. I've interviewed Greg Murphy a couple of times.

[00:15:16] Mostly during the pandemic, I talked to Melaka's he's the doctor and

[00:15:21] and he was the guy that that he said we're building the plane while we're flying it

[00:15:26] and I thought that was a really good analogy for the early days of the pandemic. That's when I had

[00:15:32] him on and we were talking about it. And in fact, I then said that to my doctor and she was like,

[00:15:39] I don't believe that at all. And I said, oh, I'm gonna be able to answer another doctor to tell me.

[00:15:41] She said, what doctor? And I was like, what do you mean what doctor? Like his name? You want his name?

[00:15:46] Yeah. Okay. I think I need another doctor. Anyway, Greg Murphy said something and McClatchy's

[00:15:56] opinion writer page, Mastine. She is going to do a fact check here. She goes, tell us what the facts

[00:16:04] are headline North Carolina congressman says Biden is recruiting illegal votes hero of the facts.

[00:16:11] So Greg Murphy made a quote in her estimation a wildly absurd claim on social media alleging that

[00:16:18] Joe Biden is intentionally leaving the U.S. border open so that undocumented immigrants can come into

[00:16:23] the country and vote. Here is what he said on the Twitter machine quote, the real vote fraud or the

[00:16:29] real voter fraud rather Biden opened our border to recruit illegal aliens to register to vote.

[00:16:35] This country's on the path of one party rule and Marxism America needs to wake up. Okay, that's what he

[00:16:42] wrote. She says as ridiculous as this statement is it's actually become a fairly common talking

[00:16:49] point among Republicans. Page, I know you're young. She was hired like right out of college.

[00:16:57] This was the wisdom of the elders here to bring in this recent college grad to impart all of her

[00:17:04] wisdom on the old folks and the lefties that still read the news and observer. It's not a ridiculous

[00:17:14] statement page but also this was in fact the articulated stated goal of Democrats.

[00:17:22] Right that whole replacement theory thing that wasn't created by Republicans. That was created

[00:17:30] by Democrats. Ruiz Teixeira wrote a whole book about it like 15 years ago. I know you were

[00:17:36] in like elementary school so you didn't probably never read it, but um wrote all about it. Talked

[00:17:41] all about it. Right how all the white people are going to die and then all these other people from

[00:17:47] Central and South America coming in they will replace all of the Native born white Americans and

[00:17:53] this was to be celebrated because that meant this was going to be the lasting permanent majority

[00:17:58] for the Democrat party because they assumed based on you know the immigrants race that they would

[00:18:04] be Democrats which I always found to be a little racisty you know like oh I see you are a certain

[00:18:11] ethnicity or color and so therefore I know your politics which is again you're making all sorts of

[00:18:17] assumptions about somebody just based on the color of their skin and I guess prejudice is kind of

[00:18:23] bigoted but you know whatever they're Democrats so it's kind of part for the course. So anyway the

[00:18:27] whole idea that the white folks are going to die off and be replaced that wasn't something that the

[00:18:32] Republicans came up with and and it started like worrying about because they thought of it. It was

[00:18:37] something that the Democrats put out there as the strategy talking about it how this was going to be

[00:18:41] fantastic so um she then says that the Biden administration and she knows this that they are not

[00:18:47] importing votes for one she says it can take a decade or longer for an immigrant to become a U.S. citizen

[00:18:56] yeah oh so you're assuming they're coming here legally oh that's adorable. Oh wait a minute are

[00:19:06] you gaslighting us here page is that what's happening or you gaslighting us it could take a decade or

[00:19:12] longer for an immigrant to become a U.S. citizen that's not who Greg Murphy's talking about but have

[00:19:16] you seen any of the footage from the southern border there's they're not all those are not all legal

[00:19:23] immigrants yeah um so she says yeah it would take you 10 years before they'd even be able to register

[00:19:31] to vote hmm not necessarily if they're following the law then yes but see registering to vote is

[00:19:38] so easy that a lot of people end up doing it when they don't even mean to do it first off they

[00:19:44] don't really speak English very well and so they go to DMV or maybe they're on a college campus or

[00:19:49] something or maybe they're just you know walking around there at a grocery store and somebody from

[00:19:54] your act blue organizations or whatever they're out there with the the clipboards and their

[00:19:59] registering people to vote she does point out it is illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal

[00:20:05] elections under federal law that is that is true she says it carries hefty punishments including

[00:20:12] deportation or imprisonment okay which which is that never happens though but like the prosecutions

[00:20:19] the vote fraud does happen but prosecutions very rarely happen but i'm going to take the win on this

[00:20:23] one folks because at least we've got a lefty who's finally acknowledging that there is in fact

[00:20:29] vote fraud and that there is a deterring effect there's a deterrence there when you have stiff penalties

[00:20:37] right because obviously she believes that it being illegal kind of like a gun free zone nobody ever

[00:20:42] brings guns into those so it's illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections

[00:20:48] how about local ones page

[00:20:52] hmm yeah there are there are municipalities that have begun extending the franchise to illegal

[00:21:01] immigrants because they live here too that's the argument here's the other thing though

[00:21:07] it's a really important thing i was going over the migration data and all that cities losing population

[00:21:13] census numbers um here's the thing um these blue areas are being supported by as i went over

[00:21:24] immigration from you know international immigration let me say international immigration

[00:21:29] domestic migration is sending people out of these areas so what the international

[00:21:35] immigration provides for these large urban counties and cities these blue democrat controlled areas

[00:21:43] and states what it provides them is population count for the census which is then used to determine

[00:21:50] how many representatives the state has in congress that's the point

[00:21:57] is that clear i don't know how much clearer i can make that all right well just as i predicted

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[00:23:12] let's go over and talk with chris hello chris what's going on

[00:23:16] hello peat hey what's up uh several months ago right about the time that the governor's the

[00:23:23] mayors of chicago in new york were complaining about this uh... influx of immigrants are getting

[00:23:29] i was channel surfing one morning and i came across morning joe and mika and joe had the governor

[00:23:35] pennsylvania on there now wait a minute hang on chris hang on hang on hang on

[00:23:40] you preface this by saying you were merely channel surfing

[00:23:43] you that was uh through the through the news channels you you totally didn't mean to be there

[00:23:49] no when i thought what they were talking about the i thought but no i was just going to yeah i'm

[00:23:53] not looking for the weather channel you know but anyway uh so the governor prince of ania's on

[00:23:59] there and he's talking about well i don't see what they're complaining about i know we know in

[00:24:04] pence of any way new how to handle this problem what we do is we encourage all the new immigrants

[00:24:09] to uh... come in and get a driver's license first and foremost you got to get a driver's license

[00:24:14] and then we automatically register them to vote now we tell them to keep us updated on their

[00:24:19] dress because when it's election time we're going to mail them all ballots and we know how to do

[00:24:24] this and the whole time mika's got that smirk on her face so anyway they said it right there on

[00:24:31] the air yeah it's not a secret and and and the uh... the ability to cross check this stuff

[00:24:37] is stymied depending on what state you are in and uh... the list maintenance and getting people

[00:24:44] off the roles and such it's it's it's entirely constructed to make it more difficult to route this

[00:24:50] stuff out uh... and to make it easier for people who want to abuse the system to do so you can't i

[00:24:55] mean remember when uh... lieutenant governor dan forest put out that video remember uh... like

[00:25:01] what eight years ago or something he did a video talking about how easy it is to commit vote fraud

[00:25:05] and and the lefties lost their mind like oh my gosh he's showing people how to commit vote fraud

[00:25:10] and but yeah that's what the law allows so if you think that's crazy then maybe join us in

[00:25:15] securing the elections

[00:25:19] i just barely remember that i remember the details of the said frost dan forest

[00:25:25] for us okay i'll look that up

[00:25:27] yeah that was a minute

[00:25:29] okay he ran against a number specifically yeah dan forest i'll try to find that

[00:25:33] yeah yeah are you are yet he did a little uh... youtube video about it Chris i

[00:25:36] appreciate the call man have a great weekend

[00:25:38] yet dan forest he was the lieutenant governor ran against roi cooper

[00:25:43] in twenty twenty and he was like masks don't work and then

[00:25:48] and then he lost

[00:25:52] and it happens

[00:25:56] russ says that idiocracy used the

[00:25:59] footwear crocs

[00:26:02] because they wanted to find

[00:26:04] shoes that only idiots would wear

[00:26:06] all right that'll do it for this episode thank you so much for listening i

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